We want to be more self-reliant and live more in harmony with the nature world. This means getting out of the city and learning new-to-us skills. We are also learning a lot about land and what to look for.

Check out what we learned:

10 Things I Learned Property Hunting

Our first adventure we spent 2 days in Vermont and explored 8 rural properties. Our second adventure to New Hampshire we explored 6 properties. It's kinda like hiking, but the a bit more off the beaten path.

"What's over that ridge?" "Does this stream lead to a waterfall?" "What is this plant?" "Oh, blackberries!" "Ugh, hemlocks and poison ivy."

#1 TICKS!

So many ticks. Overgrown properties, with long grass and shrubs are full of ticks. We stopped after each property and pulled a dozen ticks off each of us. Repeat for every property!

Then we we got home, we stripped all our clothing and ran for the bathroom. There we found more ticks, and took a well earned shower.

Tim then googled to find some sort of tick repellent/killer. But long socks, pants, long shirts are your first defense. The ticks will land on you but you can pick them off before they find flesh. It's gross but all a part of nature.

It also gives us a good idea of what to expect when we visit; mow the grass, get some chickens, and hope for the less ticks in the future.

#2 Great Views = It's a Hill

As a part of visiting the properties, we learned how to read the realtor listings. When it says "Great views", it means that the property is a hill. Maybe it's off a road that is a steep hill you have to drive up icy in the winter, or the property itself is sloped.

A sloped property is great for some things, but not as good for gardening. On our second adventure we avoided properties touting their ridge-line views, knowing it meant hiking up a hill. (Dragging your lumber and groceries up a hill.)

Views are nice, but not battling an icy hill every winter may be nicer...

#3 Selectively Logged = Logging Roads

Another realtor translation: selectively logged means there are logging roads built into the property. These roads are not "roads" as normal people would call them. They are a wide path with 2 deep grooves where the tires went.

They are trails cut through the property, often close to the boundaries and could be the start of a driveway. We actually liked the logging roads, because they are the start of rough cut trails and generally lead to open logged area.

Selectively logged wasn't a bad thing in our eyes, it mean there may be spots where all the tree were removed to make a home-site or meadow. It also meant there was some trail system in place.

#4 Selectively logged = Logging Debris

However! Selectively logged also means logging debris. Giants brush piles, with the branches removed from big timbers. It appears to me they cut the trees and strip all the limbs. They leave the limbs in place and haul out the timbers.

This means, your nice home-site/meadow could be overgrown shrubs on top of an even layer of branches from the trees. Which could be nice, or could be harboring a swamp underneath.

We happened upon a property where the branches provided a means to walk over the otherwise swampy area. But don't be fooled, it's truly a swamp! And we are avoiding any such descriptions that include "wetlands" or "swamp".

This hill is a swamp, covered in logging debris.

#5 Retired pasture = Farm Close By

Excited to find a flat property, we ventured out to this "retired pasture". It was really an overgrown field right across the street from a sheep farm that was placed right next to the road. While this was nice, it wasn't the property for us.

We want a mix of flat open land and trees. We also don't want to be too close to the road. So this retired pasture was a bit to close to it's former farm for our liking.

#6 Types of Roads

Did you know there are different types of roads? Not just dirt vs asphalt. I mean, not all public roads are town-maintained. What does that mean for us? It means the road won't be plowed by the town in the winter.

We would like to avoid any property that requires us to plow the driveway AND the road. Plowing the driveway is one thing, but upon driving those dirt roads we found something of a liking for paved roads.

It was mud-season and spring when we were driving these roads, so if we don't like them now...we surely won't like them come snow and ice season.

We may be called city-slickers for this, but we decided we like paved roads.

#7 Property Maps are Old and Incorrect

The realtors of most properties included a map. We found these maps are often old and mislabeled. Cross streets mislabeled, wrong property marked on the maps, lack of a for-sale sign, etc.

One property, in talking with a man fixing his tractor, pointed out that the lot outlined for sale on our map was actually his lot and the for sale one was next door. Another lot was listed to be right off the main road but was hidden down a side road that was missing from the map. 2 miles down this "missing" road we talked to a neighbor who pointed us to a shared driveway and into the woods to find the elusive lot.

Yet another property we went to find, had a side road listed on the map. We went to the side road but found a fully developed community and no lake as was on the map. A google map search of the same main road found another side road 5 miles down the road with an eerily similar looking pond. We ditched the given directions, and went down to the other side road to find the property! Mislabeled side road, no match for us!

Adventure! This is what we mean; hard to find and a bit of a mystery. Of course, the property boundaries aren't well marked on the ground so forest runs into forest and you can't tell what land you are walking on.

#8 Realtors Don't Take Good Pictures

I am not sure what the deal is with these raw-land realtors but their pictures are terrible. With houses, you see gorgeous photos of perfectly arranged bedrooms. You see wine and cheese laid out, with towels neatly folded.

For raw-land you see a picture of the property from the road, maybe a google earth image with the property lines drawn-on. Then 2-3 shots of some trees.

Maybe, we don't give the realtors enough credit, maybe it's really hard to get good photographs of land. But largely the pictures do little to tell you of the characteristics of the land.

Look at this awesome stream!

#9 You Don't Know till you Get There

If all the other bullets didn't tell ya, I'll say it straight. You just don't know what it's like until you get there.

One property looked great from the pictures with a mix of hardwoods and recently logged. We get there and it's a complete hill-swamp.

Hill-swamp? Yup, hill-swamp. Never seen one before. It was a logging debris covered hill in which there was a boggy river underneath the branches cut from logging. With each crunch you stepped through fully rotted top layer to sink into the mud below while on a steep slope.

Oh we noped all over that place and got out.

One property we thought looked amazing with a great open field, a stream, and logging trails. Turns out the picture was taken of the neighbors abutting field. There was a tiny right of way across the field to the forested hill property behind.

Also the logging road when over/through the stream, which may or may not be flowing year round. (i.e. you need to build a bridge for your driveway.) Sorry, not for us.

Here is the "driveway" through a stream. Hope you have 4 wheel drive.

#10 Great adventure!

I hope I conveyed through our stories, what a great adventure property hunting has been. As part of our city to farm strategy, I want to enjoy every step of the way.

I don't want to wish away the time, be grumpy, impatient or miserable. Attitude is a big part of that. Life can be an adventure or it can be a miserable tick-infested, poison ivy covered, rotting hill-swamp with skunk cabbage.

(I won't say it's completely your choice to lead an awesome-filled life. Sometimes life sucks and there aint nothing you can do about it. You can make the best, but the best may still be miserable. Life happens.)

We are lucky to be at a time and place in this world where we can enjoy this journey together and share in adventures along the way. We hope you will follow along too, and maybe be inspired to seek your own adventures!

Free downloadable maps + app for topography. You can add a "pin" where you parked your car, and be able to find it again. They work offline with GPS, even when you have no cell service. (Assuming you pre-downloaded the map before your adventure.)

If you wanted to conserve space, and look at pure calories and dollars what would a 1-month food plan look like? I run the numbers and have created a minimalist's one-month food storage plan.

In my previous article on a one-month food storage plan for 1 person, I choose mostly canned and boxed items. That plan is designed to be common foods, we eat on a normal basis. It is also designed not to ration calories. Half the items require cooking, and half would taste better if warm. You can see my full plan here: One-Month Food Stash for Less Than $150

Assumptions

What would a month of food look like if you made a few different assumptions:

Minimize cost

Minimize space

No Rationing (1,500 calories/day/person)

But 2 meals a day.

Cooking methods readily available

This would be a completely different approach to a food storage plan made of canned goods and favorite snack foods. This plan is designed for those you are:

Space limited

Funds limited (paycheck to paycheck)

Situations this plan could mitigate:

Disruption that temporarily close your grocery store

Personal job loss and income shortage

Lack of reliable transportation to the store

Extreme weather conditions (snow storm, hurricane, tornado, etc)

Meal #1: Breakfast

Protein bars are a great breakfast because they are shelf-stable, don't require cooking, can be eaten on the go, and are quick to eat.

Cliff Bar vs Gatorade Bar

Gatorade bars are approximately $1.50 per bar and contain 360 calories.

If we are looking to minimize cost and also space, we want a caloricly dense and cheap bar. These two bars are roughly the same size. If we look at cost per calories we see which one is more economical.

Using this benchmark we see the Gatorade bar is a better deal. However taste may drive your purchase decision. The 360 calories of the Gatorade bar is meal sized, even if it doesn't feel like it.

vs Oatmeal + Jam

Let's look at another example of a cheap breakfast food: Oatmeal + 2 tbsp of Jam. This is assuming a serving is 1/2 cup uncooked oatmeal (150 calories) with strawberry jam (100 calories per 2 tbsp).

Oatmeal: $0.0025 per calorie

Jam: $0.0016 per calorie

Oatmeal + Jam: $ 0.0041 per calorie.

Oatmeal and jam is exactly the same cost per calorie at the Gatorade bar. Both could be options for our short-term food storage plan. I think the protein bars are denser and take up less space. While jam is calorically dense, oatmeal is not. Oatmeal also has to be cooked, so for our plan we will include Gatorade protein bars for breakfast.

Meal #2: Lunch/Dinner

Rice and beans are by far the cheapest method of calories. Nearly every society has rice and beans as the staple of it's diet. They are easy to cook, cheap, and give you the calories to make it through the day. Depending on spice availability, they may not always be the best tasting, but they will allow a person to survive.

(Prices quoted are from Walmart in 2-3 lb bags.)

Rice: $0.05/oz = $0.00055 per calorie

Quinoa: $0.21/oz = $0.0025 per calorie

Black Beans: $0.08/oz = $0.0011 per calorie

Pinto Beans: $0.04/oz = $0.00055 per calorie

Lentils: $0.09/oz = $0.00053 per calorie

Given this sampling of rice and beans options we see Rice and Lentils are the cheapest calories available. Pinto beans are very close to lentils, so you could swap them out by preference. Quinoa is remarkably more expensive per calorie than the others. For this one-month food storage I will choose pinto beans and rice, as I like pinto beans better than lentils. Lentils however may store more compactly then pinto beans.

Before considering how much space our rice and beans take up, we first need to know how much we need to survive (not necessarily thrive). The idea of eating only rice, beans, and Gatorade bars for a month is unappealing but you would survive.

Rice: 206 calories/cup (cooked)

Beans: 286 calories/cup (cooked)

Meal #2 needs 1140 calories, so as not to ration calories.

1 cup rice + 1 cup beans is 492 calories

2 cup rice + 2 cup beans is 984

3 cups rice + 2 cups beans is 1190

So for dinner/lunch we will have 3 cups of rice and 2 cups of cooked pinto beans. Salt should be included at a minimum to spice the beans. (Maybe also Beano or Gas-X too...)

Scaled to a Month:

Scaling these numbers to feed a person for a month we get approximately 23 lbs of rice, 15 lbs of beans, 30 protein bars and ~4 cups of salt. Let's also add a multivitamin to fill the gaps with any missing nutrients.

Cost:

It seems to me the expensive part of this plan is the protein bars but I think they provide diversity to the meal plan and also sugar and fats. And we saw that oatmeal and jam was just as expensive per calorie. For $77 dollars, a person could survive for a month. Given they also had plenty of water to drink and to cook the rice and beans.

This plan includes less items than my other 1-month meal plan. This plan is also, cheaper, more boring, more gas inducing, and a minimalist approach to food security. To see my other plan:

Conclusion

This one-month food plan would keep you alive, it will not keep you happy. But it could be used to majorly supplement what is already in your food pantry. Maybe this is just too over-analyzed for you, and price per calorie is not something you care about. I get that, but I like numbers. As they say, a man's gotta eat, and this will keep you fed.

What is Short-Term Food Storage?

If you look at the foods you have in your pantry, such as canned green beans and a half-open box of pasta. You will find that most expiration dates are in the 1-4 years range. This is what I mean by "short-term" food storage.

These foods can be stored in the event fresh food is not available, but will not last for decades.

Eventually the natural order of things will come; oxygen will invade, and your foods will start to break down. Storing canned goods in dark, cool places can extend it's printed shelf-life; but not enough to be considered long-term.

We will consider Short-term foods, those which have a shelf-life of 1-4 years, sitting in a room temperature cabinet. We don't include items that need to be frozen or require refrigeration.

Why Short-Term Food Storage?

#1 Minor Supply Disruptions

There are a multitude of cases that could cause supply disruptions. It is healthy to buy fresh veggies at the store every week, but any number of problems could disrupt your ability to do so.

You don't have to seek out a source for bulk +30 lbs of beans or +5 lb tub of oil. Short-term foods can be stocked normally as part of your family's normal grocery shop. It should just neatly fit right into your established habits.

#3 Store in original packaging

Short-term food items can be stored in their original packaging. Canned goods stay in their cans. Pasta can stay in it's cardboard box and rice can stay in it's plastic bag. For a few years, given a pest-free cabinet these foods will be just fine.

Over decades, oxygen and moisture will degrade the food but this is not the case for a few years. All short-term foods can be stocked away just as they are, plain and simple.

#4 Insurance

We view short-term food supply, like all our preparedness supplies as insurance. We buy an extra canned good today when we have access and can afford it. When we are low on cash, can't get to the store, or the store is closed we have that insurance in the pantry.

Unlike typical insurance, we don't have to make a claim and wait weeks to see the payout. Our food is a way to set our minds at ease, that we can handle small disruptions of food supply without drastically changing our family's eating habits.

What to Store for the Short-Term

Store what you currently eat. In general, we recommend storing what you typically eat in a normal week. (Unless of course you eat frozen TV diner for every meal.) Some items to get you started:

Do not store what your family does not eat. If you do not like it now, you won't magically like it when you need it. Sure you will eat if if you are hungry enough, but why not stock what you family does like to eat.

That will make the disruption to your life less stressful, and perhaps with less complaining from the family.

Our Food Stash

How Much to Short-Term Food to Store?

Start with 3 days

What does 3 days of food look like for your family? What does each person like it eat? For my family of 2, a single day could look something like this:

This chili recipe is difficult to scale for one day, and makes 6-8 servings, depending if we make 2 cups of rice (uncooked). While not optimal, we could make 1 batch of chili and reheat it for each meal.

This chili won't got bad if left out for a day, and recooked at each meal time (not optimal I know, but doable). If you have a wood stove, you could leave the chili simmering there. So three days for 2 people would look something like:

3 cups of oatmeal (+ water)

12 tbsp jam

6 protein bars + 6 servings of mixed nuts

1 can:

corn

baked beans

black beans

diced tomatoes

1 pre-mixed chili seasoning

2 cups rice

Then a Week

When you have 3 days worth of food for you family, double the amount to cover you for a week. What new recipes could you include so you don't get tired of the same foods?

What additional things would you desire? You can go 3 days without coffee, but after a week you may want a cup or two. Keep expanding your food supply to stretch for longer and longer periods of time.

Checking + Rotating your Short-Term Food Stores

Since these items have a shorter shelf-life they need to be rotated out with fresh supplies.

Luckily, if you did your homework, these canned goods are foods you family already eats. It's not just a matter of being sure to eat the old ones, AND replace them with new ones.

For us, we do a 6-month check to see if any items are missing. We often find that some one wanted corned-beef hash for breakfast, took a can but didn't write it down. So the next shopping trip, it wasn't replaced.

Magically, items disappear even in our 2-person household....I can only imagine what having children/teens in the mix would do to my organization.

Our method:

Calendar marked: November + May

My Google calendar tells me what to check each month. In November and May, I check my Short-Term food supply for items that may have gone missing. I don't have to remember, Google reminds me. If you use paper, mark the dates ahead of time.

Cans labeled: Expiration Date

On each can or box I have used a marker to clearly label the expiration date. This means I can quickly look over the items to see what is close to expiring.

When you add the replaced items, take a moment to label the new items in a large font their expiration date.

Replace what is Missing

Make a list of missing items and set the list in a place you will remember to take to the grocery store.

Eat what is about to Expire

Remove items that are set to expire in the next 6-months from your supply and add them to your pantry.

Cooking your Short-Term Food

Cooking your food should be very similar to how you normally cook. As they are foods you eat everyday, they should be easy for you to cook. Some meals, could even require no cooking at all.

Some meals may be fully cooked but just heated up. Meals that don't require heating or cooking will save on fuel, if you have to ration that as well.

Water: If your food requires water, then you will need to take that into consideration as well. Do you have a good supply of water or at least water filters to purify cooking water? Consider a simple Sawyer filter to clean potentially contaminated cooking water.

Featured Posts

This blog does not share personal information with third parties nor do we store any information about your visit to this blog other than to analyze and optimize your content and reading experience through the use of cookies. You can turn off the use of cookies at anytime by changing your specific browser settings. We are not responsible for republished content from this blog on other blogs or websites without our permission. This privacy policy is subject to change without notice and was last updated on Feb 17, 2017.